Tag Archives: comprehensive plan

Seattle makes deadline for state Middle Housing law but still has big 20-year growth plan questions to solve

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Tuesday’s council vote on the legislation was held in a virtual session as City Hall was closed in anticipation of a planned protest outside the building

By the hair on its chin, the Seattle City Council has met a statewide deadline for implementing new so-called Middle Housing legislation, approving a bill Tuesday setting the framework for expanded zoning to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city.

CHS reported here on the final amendments shaped by the comprehensive code update committee led by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth that will put many of the development and zoning changes proposed over months of debate back on the table now that the May 30th deadline for the interim legislation has been met.

The city turned to the interim legislation intended to form the structure of the comprehensive plan and Neighborhood Residential updates to implement the HB 1110 state Middle Housing laws after legal challenges to the planning process slowed down an already massively delayed process. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s initial 20-year plan proposal the council started with itself had landed around a year later than planned. Continue reading →

Seattle City Council’s comprehensive growth plan committee eyes June deadline as neighborhood appeals denied

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The Seattle City Council’s comprehensive growth plan committee will move forward this week with a major question answered. No, the six appeals filed against the growth plan proposal will not bring the process to a halt.

Last week, the city’s Hearing Examiner dismissed the appeals including cases representing Madison Valley, Mount Baker, Hawthorne Hills, and “73 remaining Southern resident killer whales” in a single filing. “None of those issues gained traction or won a day in appeals court thanks to a 2022 state ‘safe harbor’ law that exempts actions taken by local governments to increase housing capacity from appeals under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA),” the Urbanist reports.

The council’s comp plan committee led by District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth, meanwhile, can resume its path toward finalizing a new 20-year growth plan for the city that includes new “neighborhood centers” across the city including D3’s Madison Park, Madison Valley, Montlake, and Madrona. The designation could “allow residential and mixed-use buildings up to 6 stories in the core and 4- and 5-story residential buildings toward the edges,” according to the proposal. Continue reading →

Coalition calls for more growth — denser ‘middle housing,’ more housing near transit, more ‘Tall and Green Homes’ — in Seattle growth plan

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Many of Seattle’s most influential business and community organizations have formed a coalition calling on Mayor Bruce Harrell and the Seattle City Council to adopt more ambitious growth goals and increase housing density more thoroughly — and more equitably — across the city.

Co-chaired by leadership of Futurewise and the Housing Development Consortium, the Complete Communities Coalition including the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity, House Our Neighbors, the NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association, and Seattle growth and development advocacy and media organization The Urbanist is calling for the city’s proposed update to its 20-year comprehensive growth plan to “reform zoning rules and housing policies to allow more homes of all shapes and sizes,” “incentivize affordable housing and homeownership,” “build upon our recent historic, nearly $1 billion investment in affordable housing, the Seattle Housing Levy.”

At its core, the group says it is calling on city leaders to shape the next growth plan to extend new state law House Bill 1110 legalizing “the creation of cottage homes, townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, and other midrise multifamily housing types in single-family zones” into all areas of the city — not just areas where density has been clustered under past zoning.

The coalition is also asking for the final plan to fully do away with parking requirements, saying “requirements for off-street parking in several residential areas will make desperately needed units less likely to be built.” Continue reading →